Readers of The Potter’s Boy follow Ryo, a young man in Japan, as he leaves his family and home and sets out on a journey to find his place in the world. This story is beautifully written. The book is prose, but the language is so lyrical that it has an almost poetic mood. The descriptions of settings, characters, and actions seem woven together into the fullness of a whole story. Tony Mitton brings the reader into the setting of feudal Japan in such a way that the reader feels like they are a part of the experience. His description of cultural practices are vivid and detailed.

Yet, for all of the book’s beauty and resonance, it is missing something in terms of plot. The young hero, Ryo, is honorable and sympathetic for readers, and readers are at first drawn into his quest. The author skillfully leads the readers along on the journey, but the journey at times becomes plodding and slow and requires a heroic patience from its protagonist. Readers, especially young readers who neither share that patience nor realize the same necessity as Ryo to cultivate it, may find themselves longing for the story to move on to more action. Overall, the book is beautifully written, a good work of literature, but unlikely to be the sort of novel that will inspire the imagination of children or foster in them much enthusiasm for the book.

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by David Fickling Press

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:1 mild obscenity. Note:  A few uses of “bloody” in the British sense (not tallied). 

Violence:  A few verbal threats; report of a village sacked and villagers killed; report of an assassination; bodies are burned; a character finds a village destroyed; a few martial arts fights with minor injury; a character causes minor property damage; characters hit one another without intent to cause serious injury a few times; characters spar using martial arts a few times; an extended fight using martial arts without serious injury (6 pages); a battle in which dozens of people are killed without description of any gore; a partially mutilated corpse is discovered (not gory).

Sex/Nudity:  A man is distracted by a pretty girl; characters hug; mention of being in public without clothes as an embarrassing experience (not sexual).

Mature Subject Matter:

Banditry, death (parents, friend), practice of abandoning unwanted infants, mindfulness and meditation are a central focus in this book.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

None